


lets not grow up now

by goreallegore



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreallegore/pseuds/goreallegore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then he sees it, a trace of blush running up the column of his thick neck, to his bristly jaw to the apple of his cheeks, “Am very proper into the whole scruffy-don’t-touch-me-i’m-not-meant-to-be-loved look.”</p><p>Or; Louis and his friends vandalize a cops backyard. Turns out the cop has a son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lets not grow up now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theamazingpeterparker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theamazingpeterparker/gifts).



Louis brushes the dirt off his knees, the remnants of the dust clinging to his black skinnies, his beat-up white vans not looking any better. Harry stumbles into his back, pushing on his feet and regaining his always offset balance, and says slowly, “Thanks, Lou, would’ve landed on my face if you hadn’t been there.”   
  


Harry hasn’t ever done this, no, he mostly sits back and watches them wreak havoc, but today he’d begged off Zayn to join them, and of course, since he’s arse over tits in love with Harry he’d allowed him to join. Maybe, Louis can bury Harry in the pretty garden when no one’s looking. Liam circles round Harry to Louis handing him over a can of spray.   
  


“Remind me again which innocent man’s garden are we destroying today?” Liam asks, already shoveling at the lush tomato bush that has  the small fruit dangling from its stems, Zayn slowly working towards the peonies. He plucks one out and then a daisy, and then a bluebell, and uses a long grass blade to tie a knot around the stems, handing the miniature bouquet over to Harry who gasps startlingly, enveloping Zayn into his gangly arms. Fuckers, anyone can pretend to be that happy. Louis’ happy, or well, will be once he destroys Officer Horan’s precious plant life that he’s done a marvelous upkeep of.

 

“Horan, the new deputy officer, he’s been on me arse since they closed down the Donny lot for some corporate firm construction and he’d found me skating there with Oli and the lot,” Louis explains, shaking the spray can and moving over to the tall wooden fence they’d climbed over. He’s not into graffiting public places like the cool stencils he sees near peckham stations, not his thing - unless it is on the property of people he doesn’t like. A long list, that is.

 

“What if they report us?” Harry asks, dazedly, smelling the flowers. “He’s a cop, no? What if they kick us out of school?”

 

“Zayn, tell your prissy boyfriend to not worry his pretty little head, and if he’s got so much of a problem he can sit it out,” Louis snarls, filling in the navy blue outline of the capital F in. Zayn rolls his eyes getting back to tearing out the little space where parsley has barely begin to sprout, and tugs it out, a chunk of dirt along with it. 

 

“Aw, you think I’m pretty,” Harry comments which Louis promptly ignores. They’ve been friends since the beginning of time or in colloquial terms since the diaper era - ah, the joyous freedom of walking around with portable toilets wherever they went. Life’s so much more complicated once you’re potty trained. 

 

They trash the entire backyard, the tan fence now sporting a large F and U with a pink exclamation point followed after the letters. Louis grins looking at the fantastic work they’ve done, and high fives Liam, who has a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and Harry looks just as he did when they hopped in, and Zayn who’s now slouching  probably ready for his mid-day nap, “Good work, boys!”   
  


“He’s gonna be so pissed when he comes back home,” Liam laughs, already moving to climb out of the property. Harry follows after, glancing back at Zayn to see if he’ll give him a push, but Louis chimes in, “Yeah, push enough so this time he  _ does _ hit his face.”   
  


Harry gives him an intense glare and then scurries over the fence. It is all going well, too well, if you ask Louis, and knowing him he’s like the spawn of evil so just as trouble is attracted towards him, so is all the lawful good in the world. His mum has a collection of tickets, warnings, detention slips, paperclipped in her bedside drawer. Louis thinks it’s cute.

 

“What the hell?” a voice catches him by surprise, at the cusp of being high, but just throaty enough. And,  _ very irish _ .

 

Louis takes in a deep breath turning around to charm his way out of this one, they’re mostly easy, talk a little, throw in a joke or two and - well, shit. The boy is about his age is the first thing Louis notices. The second thing he notices is the way his hair is very much like Fizzy’s favorite ice cream cone, a scoop of chocolate topped off with a summery mango. His eyes are blue, softer than his own, dancing with confusion and anger perhaps, and face is like peppermint candy, the white and red lost in swirls. 

 

“Who are you?” The boy demands, sturdy hands on his hips, feet planted to the ground. 

 

“Louis Tomlinson!” Louis cheers, immediately regretting and slapping his mouth shut with his hand.  _ Why in the world he’ll tell him his real name what is he even doing _ .

 

“Well, Louis Tomlinson, you just destroyed my garden!” The boy complains, throwing his hands up in the air in a huff, his chest expanding. And then he’s pouting, worrying his bottom lip, and knitting his brows, “I worked on it  _ all  _ summer.”   
  


Louis blinks. Ok, he’s clearly feeling something in his chest that is close to the feeling he gets when he lies to Fizz about their Dad coming back for christmas. Guilt, right, that’s what it is called.

 

“I- Who are you?” Louis asks, instead.

 

“Very brave of you to ask that while you’re standing on my lawn, vandalising my property, and destroying my plants,” Niall counts down on his fingers. 

 

“I, just, thought this was officer Horan’s place and -,” he doesn’t finish because the boy looks sad again. God damn, his eyes look like a river that he’s plunged in and is now drowning deeper and deeper. 

 

“My dad?” 

 

“Ok, well, I didn’t know that hard ass had kids, and like sorry, I thought your dad had a green thumb or somewhat wanted to take revenge for busting me at the Donny lot,” Louis rubs at his elbow, nervous out of nowhere, sorry that he destroyed the kids hard work.

 

Niall glances past him, over his shoulder to gaze at the exquisite piece of art he’d added along with his excavating that is close to the scene in that history documentary that Harry made him watch the other day with the mummies. Or, was it the movie mummies? He can’t bring himself to remember.

 

“You know, man, you could’ve totalled his car, it’s literally parked outside, painted on it or even tp’d it. Why’d you have to go ahead and destroy my dandelions?” Niall asks, earnest even when he’s readily handing ideas to ruin his - ugh,  _ my dandelions _ this kid.

 

But then he goes ahead and looks even sadder, as if that was possible, his brows threading into one, the corners of his lips sagging so low that voldemort himself would concoct a spell to fix everything if he saw it.

 

And then he cries, “I spent 29 days exactly on the daisies! And 12 on the Dandelions! And the seeds for tomatoes were a gift from my mother! From when you know, from when she was around!”   
  


Louis flails his hands around as if he’s pushing down on the air to calm the boy down, racking his brain on what he’s going to do, but the kid continues, “My gammy was gonna come down from Ireland for the first time. Was gonna see me garden before I started school. She’ll be so sad!”   
  


Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

 

He sniffles, like proper sniffles, cheeks red and all, “I was gonna ask me dad to let me bring a bouquet made of the flowers from the garden to me mums’ -” Stopping short.   
  


Well,  _ fuck _ . 

 

Louis pulls at the end of his fringe, moving forward and tentatively placing a hand over the hybrid blonde-brunette, “Ok, first like stop with the -” pausing to gesture at the tears, “waterworks.”

 

“Ok,” The boy says, then a little belatedly, “Names Niall.”   
  


“Alri, Niall, how about I like fix this? If you stop crying? Yeah, you think you can do that for me?” Niall nods, patiently waiting as Louis sufferingly enough tries to find a solution to their problem. He’s not too keen on seeing the boy cry like that again, mostly cause if he’d went on, he would’ve made Louis shed a tear or two. He’s not ready for that type of commitment  _ yet _ .

 

He’s rubbing his chin, thinking of what to do, when Niall’s mood does a 360, a complete turnover, he’s bumbling like a honey bee going on its first adventure, “Weeeeelllllll.” The words drag on until he says, “Could help me clean the flower beds, go to the community greenhouse, get some seeds, and take care of the plants with me.”   
  


“But that would take months…” Louis starts, but Niall’s bottom lip wobbles. Hell to this, honestly, “I mean, yes of course, why not! Meet me outside in 10!”

 

Niall nods, enthusiastically walking back into the house, while Louis finger guns him. Is he serious right now? Apparently so. He climbs over the fence, when he could’ve easily asked Niall to let him out the front door, and comes to face a bunch of idiots who are rather amused.

 

Harry tries to speak, he really does, but Louis cuts him short, “Don’t.”

 

_ 3 weeks later _

 

They’re in Niall’s garden, Louis walking about the bushes with a watering can, and Niall has a green colored trowel that he’s using to plant the freesia. And from the looks of it it seems to be proving to be unhelpful especially since it's rough around the edges from what Louis can tell, Niall digs it in one last time with a forceful jab, creating a tiny crater to plant in the roots of the stemmed flower, glancing up and catching Louis’ eye.

 

“We could go to the store and get a new one, y’know?” Louis offers, squatting down to Niall’s level. School should be starting up soon, the garden almost completely recovered with new flower seeds planted, and the fence painted over. Niall had asked for the U and ! to be kept for some reason though. Louis painted around it, careful. Surprisingly enough he hadn’t even gotten into much trouble with Niall’s dad after. Wonder what placated him. 

 

Niall shrugs, patting his newly rooted flower bed, “Nah, my mom got this for me -”

 

“Before she died, right,” Louis rubs his neck, his cheeks warming up at how he continues to offend Niall.

 

“Actually,” Niall turns his mouth, a pinched look on his face, “I might’ve lied. Like, a little.”

 

“Oh,” Louis mumbles, “So, like she didn’t give it to you?”

 

“No, not that part, the part where I said my mom is dead.”

 

“Oh, ok.”   
  


Louis gets up to trim the shrubs, and then stops, realization dawning on him, quickly turning on his heel. His eyes blown wide and Niall looks right scared, like he’s awoken the basilisk - he looks a little constipated too. 

 

“What do you mean you  _ lied _ ?” Louis prompts, more confused than mad. Niall gets up taking off his gloves, and running a hand through his hair, “My parents are divorced, so she’s technically not dead.”

 

“Why’d you lie?”

 

“Well, if we’re being technical I just said from when she’s ‘around’. It was you who assumed that she was dead,” Niall states, stifling a laugh. And that’s true, Niall hadn’t exactly said that but.

 

Oh my god. 

 

“You faked it! The entire thing! The crying and all!” Louis points a finger at Niall who doubles over into laughter, and it shouldn’t be sending butterflies to Louis’ stomach but you know what? It does. “Why’d you do it?”   
  


Niall shrugs, “You walked in here into my house with all that ‘i’m badass and i’m gonna destroy a cops place’ swagger so I decided to pull your leg. Didn’t realize you’d be so easy to trick.”   
  


“But you cried with real tears,” Louis questions, unbelievingly.

 

“I’m younger of the two siblings, if you want to get favors done you need to learn to shed a tear or two,” Niall arches his brow, and damn this - how the fuck is Louis insanely awestruck in the most pleasurable way possible right now. 

 

Louis is hurt though, a little, “So, we’re like what? Not even friends?” They’d started sixth form a week ago, ended up in a couple of classes together, and after school had been done walked together back to Niall’s to see after the garden.

 

Niall bites his lower lip at that, “See I was hoping.” He strides towards him, coming to stand close enough that they can practically exchange each other’s breaths like they’re in some kind of survival movie and this is their last option. Sharing oxygen, that is. And then he sees it, a trace of blush running up the column of his thick neck, to his bristly jaw to the apple of his cheeks, “Am very proper into the whole scruffy-don’t-touch-me-i’m-not-meant-to-be-loved look.”

 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Louis says, catching up and gaining his composure, “Must be more than just good looks, no?”

 

Niall pretends to think over it, scratching at his chin as if he’s been giving a monumentally intricate task, “No, I actually can’t think of anything else.”   
  


“You little shit,” Louis pushes at his shoulder, high on the feeling rushing through him. But then Niall’s eyes soften, and he admits easily, like how Lottie fits her hand into Louis’ whenever they go to the mall, “He makes me laugh. He’s impossibly kind despite what he tries to put out. And.”

 

“And?” Louis encourages.

 

“And he is pretty badass,” Niall grins leaning forward and placing a swift kiss to Louis’ cheek. Turning around and walking toward the little trolley holding all the gardening supplies leaving Louis brushing over the ghosting touch of Niall’s lips on his cheek. 

 

“You coming?” Niall calls out over his shoulder.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I am,” Louis follows suit, sidling up to Niall and helping him carry the things back to the garage. He reckons, he might as well stay for dinner. Get acquainted with Horans. 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos / comments / come talk @ niallohmighty.tumblr.com


End file.
